Many prepared foods, especially fried foods such as french fries, fried chicken, onion rings and the like contain a substantial amount of oil and grease therein; particularly if made as in restaurants by means of conventional deep-frying equipment or the like. This excessive oil or grease may cause the food to have an unpleasant taste and/or texture. Further, the excessive oil or grease maybe associated with undesirable nutritional characteristics. Also, the shelf life of foods prepared in a considerable amount of oil is relatively short, since in time the oil will penetrate into the food, causing a soggy and unpleasant texture.
Typical methods of removing the oil or grease from the foods include conventional draining and blotting. For a conventional draining procedure, typically the food is trapped in a strainer of some type, from which the grease is allowed to drain through gravity action, shaking or the like. An example of this is the typical deep-fry strainer, used in many fast food establishments for the preparation of french fries or chicken.
Another conventional method of degreasing foods is through the use of a conventional blotter or the like, for example an absorbent sheet of cloth or paper. Problems with these are that the materials are often not sufficiently absorbent to readily degrease the material, either as rapidly as desirable or to as great as an extent as might be desirable. Further such sheet materials, with oil or grease absorbed on the surface thereof, may become locally saturated, messy and inconvenient to handle.
Some specialized materials have been developed to handle and readily absorb oils and greases. One example of this is T-151 oil sorbent, a 3M product, (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, St. Paul, Minn. 55144). T-151 absorbent and similar absorbent materials are typically non-woven polymeric fiber webs and include certain polyolefin polymers such as polypropylene, polyethylene, poly-4-methylpentene, arylene, styrene, and copolymers thereof (100% polypropylene being the most effective), as well as polyesters, polyamides, and polycarbonates. A web is readily made from these polymers or mixtures or blends of them. The web forms a sorbent layer of material, typically having fibers ranging in diameter from 0.1 to 250 microns. The web density, expressed as a percent of fiber density, for preferred sorbents ranges from about 2 to 65% and generally 4 to 35%. The lower the density of the web, generally the greater its capacity to attract and retain oil. Layers of such polymeric materials useable as a sorbent may also be formed from chopped, spun, fibrulated or otherwise arranged material.
The use of such a material to separate water and immiscible oils and oil-like substances, from mixtures, is described in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 31,087 reissued Nov. 23, 1982, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Such a fibrous web is generally capable of absorbing and retaining many times its own weight of oil, and thus can be very efficient as an absorbent material.
Absorbent pads made from such materials, however, are generally unacceptable for use alone as blotting pads in association with fried foods or the like. The reasons for this are generally twofold:
1. First, such absorbent materials are generally formed as non-woven, highly fibrous, webs. The many fibers, and high surface area, facilitate oil collection. However, the tiny fibers can easily become separated from the web, and will often cling to foods placed thereagainst. A similar problem occurs if chopped material is used.
2. Also, such highly fibrous, absorbent, polymeric materials typically have a relatively low melting point and are easily damaged by application of substantial heat. As a result, it is often found that when very hot, oil-soaked, fried foods are placed against the absorbent material, substantial heat damage occurs. This can cause the absorbent material to stick to the food, and it generally reduces the effectiveness and efficiency of absorption. Further, it sometimes may lead to transfer of an undesirable taste to the food materials.
Except for the problems described above, generally the high absorbency of polymeric fibrous materials such as those described makes them an excellent candidate as absorbent material for oil and grease absorption; and, indeed, in many applications these materials have found, and are likely to continue to find, substantial use, especially in relatively low temperature applications (about 200.degree. F. or below). What has been needed, however, has been a method and arrangement for providing such absorbent materials whereby they can be used effectively with relatively hot, oil-soaked, foods or the like.